Suite Surrender

Fantasy Hotel Suites Aim To Rekindle Sparks In Comatose Romances.

November 08, 1989|By James Lileks, Knight-Ridder Newspapers.

WRITING FROM BURNSVILLE, MINN. — It happens to every couple. The libido gets worn smooth by familiarity and needs a good stiff brush with the unusual to put the nap back in the fabric. Some people try different undergarments to please their spouses; some, regrettably, turn to ordinary undergarments that happen to have different people inside them.

People try different things, but sooner or later, everyone takes the Motel Cure.

Not just any motel will do, though. Some people need seclusion; some need amenities. And, apparently, some need a room where the bathtub rests in the mouth of a giant whale and the bed is shaped like a boat-a place where they can utter ``Ahoy!`` in feverish tones and not feel ridiculous. These people need the Moby Dick suite. Lucky for them, it exists.

Along with the Sherwood Forest suite, the Wild Wild West suite, the Pharaoh`s Tomb suite and 20 others. They make up two wings of the FantaSuite Hotel, a renovated Howard Johnson`s on the edge of Burnsville, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Each room is guaranteed to have an unusual bed, a whirlpool tub that-hint, hint-fits two, and a decor that suggests some faraway place where love reigns, mystery lurks and the kids are down for the night.

The concept has proved more popular than even the management imagined when the hotel opened a year and a half ago. The suites, which cost $179 per night on weekends, are booked to capacity every weekend. And with a $156 weekday rate, the suites` occupancy runs around 60 percent. Here, of course, there is no single rate.

Name that fantasy

If sitting naked in a hot tub resting on the tongue of a fiberglass whale is not your fantasy, you might wonder to whom these fantasies belong. Here`s an example:

The FantaSuite just opened its 24th room, Venetian Holiday, and it`s based on a suggestion by Cheryl Knox, a Vadnais Heights, Minn., single parent who took the open-house tour the hotel holds every Sunday at 2:15 p.m. Eight months ago, after her tour, Cheryl decided to enter the contest to design a new room.

Knox, a nursery-school teacher, had come for the tour with a girlfriend, and the two sat down and started scrawling down suggestions.

``I`ve never been to Venice,`` says Knox, ``but I had an idea. The bed would be in the gondola, going down a canal. The walls would have pictures of buildings, and there would be an Italian tenor in the room, singing.``

She submitted 10 ideas that day. ``I don`t remember them all; there was a skiing holiday, a roll in the hay.`` The Venetian theme was chosen as the winner, and work began. It takes $100,000 to make a fantasy suite; two rooms are required, as well as special furnishings-you`ll note the absence of the Bed-In-A-Gondola Co. in the Yellow Pages. A company in Wisconsin manufactures the decorations, and a local artist paints the walls.

Francoise Willems, who handles public relations for Royale Hospitality, the firm that owns the nation`s eight FantaSuite Hotels, says the company adds a room every six months to the Burnsville property.

The hotel, originally built in 1964, has several wings still untouched, so there are many years` worth of fantasies left to build. For the moment, however, Cheryl Knox`s is the latest addition, and this is her moment of glory: We`ve arrived on the day she is to view her room for the first time.

Luciano, perhaps?

``This tickles me,`` she says on the way to the room. Her two daughters, Jennifer and Kea, trail behind, proudly. ``I have no idea what to expect. A bed, a gondola-I`ll be happy. And an Italian tenor.``

Willems opens the door, and Knox steps in. Her eyes widen.

``Look at this! What a riot! This is hysterical!`` She takes it all in:

the tiled tub, the murals of the clear water and stern buildings, the black gondola that juts through an archway like a car driven through someone`s front window. ``This is gorgeous. Okay, the Italian tenor goes there.``

She turns to her daughters.

``This, girls, is as close to Italy as we`re going to get.``

Knox`s prize for choosing the room`s design will be a night in her own fantasy, adrift in that gondola. She will be blessed with luxury: Like all rooms at the FantaSuite, this one has two televisions-one is built into the gondola`s prow-and a stereo in the headboard.

Knox`s wish for the aforementioned Venetian tenor will be unfulfilled, but only for a while. Willems says that they will be installing a tenor: A statue, presumably wearing a striped shirt and a pencil-thin mustache, will be standing directly over the headboard.

Is the coast clear?

The FantaSuites clientele doesn`t vary much. There are no businesspeople, and few newlyweds.

``The typical guests,`` says Francoise Willems, ``are usually couples, people who`ve been married a while, five to seven years. A lot of women rent the rooms for anniversaries or birthdays and surprise their spouses. And lately we`ve been seeing more and more kids.``